“In the past.”
“Problems come back. Maybe he needed the money?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so,” she said. “Nick Champlain is a careful man. It doesn’t make sense that he would have paid someone like Sanders, who supposedly has a drinking problem, to do that.”
“But he paid him to be his bodyguard.”
“That’s different.”
“So, what do you think?”
Hunter shrugged. “I think it’s something we don’t know yet,” she said. “Give us some more time. I’ll have a better answer in another day or two.”
He nodded, straightening his papers.
“What does the state’s attorney think?” Hunter asked.
“About Sanders? He’s not concerned. He’s going to consider her death an accident until someone tells him otherwise.”
“And he’s still unaware of Susan’s photo, I take it.”
“Yep. We’ll just keep it that way for the time being.” He showed his sly smile, just the right side of his mouth. Moore was an adept navigator through the politics of local law enforcement. He was acting as if the photos were unrelated to Susan’s death, even if he didn’t believe it. Moore liked to keep information in a tight circle for as long as possible, which was why he wasn’t quite ready to bring Fischer and Tanner in, she suspected.
“Oh, and I talked with Scott Randall yesterday,” he added, almost an afterthought. “He stopped in to see me.”
This was what Hunter had been expecting.
“Yes. And?”
He made a face and rolled his eyes. “He tried to push an agenda on me and I told him we couldn’t really help him. Although I don’t have any problem with you talking with him.”
“He said you were on board with what he wanted to do.”
His nose scrunched. “I’m not on board with him at all. I said I didn’t mind if he listened in on your conversation with Champlain. If you didn’t mind. He left the electronic device, if we want to do it. But that’s up to you.
“Our case and his case are two separate things,” he added. “I told him that. I made that clear.”
“Good.”
“Just use your own best judgment.”
“I will.”
“And you want my honest assessment? The guy’s kind of a bozo. Something about the man just rubbed me the wrong way.”
Hunter nodded. Further warning about Scott Randall.
She told him then about the two threatening phone calls she’d received. Moore breathed heavily, showing mild interest.
“Any idea who it might be?”
“Not really.” For some reason, she was thinking about Barry Stilfork, the deputy sheriff who patrolled overnight. But she also mentioned Marc Devlin.
“You know what I think?” he said, giving her his inscrutable, squint-eyed stare. “You’re interviewing Champlain in Philly on Monday, right?”
“One o’clock,” Hunter said.
“I think it might do you good to get out of town for a day or two. Doesn’t your mom live up there?”
Hunter just looked at him. She often couldn’t tell what he was thinking until he told her.
“Stay a couple days if you want,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get away from here. Recharge the batteries a little. We’ll carry the slack.”
The conference room phone buzzed before Hunter could respond. Moore answered it. He said, “Yep.” Then again, twice: “Yep. Yep.” He hung up. “Anyway, you got two visitors up front,” he said, and winked.
NANCY WILKINS ADAMS looked like a stockier, more subdued version of her dead sister, Susan Champlain, with the same rounded cheekbones and lively blue eyes. Susan’s brother Brian had even more of her in his face—the nicely shaped nose, the compelling downward smile—although he, too, was heavier than she’d been.
“We just had a drive around the town. Nice place,” he said, sounding like a tourist, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
“Yes, it’s very charming,” Nancy added, not so upbeat.
“It is.” Hunter welcomed them into her office. They’d been to Baltimore first to see their sister’s body, then to the Champlains’ home in Philadelphia to collect some of her possessions. They came back through Tidewater to get the rest of her personal effects from the rental house at Cooper’s Point. But Hunter sensed that they were also here because they wanted to see where she had lived out her final days, and where she had died.
Nancy said, “Nicholas has already left, we hear.”
“He wasn’t at the house in Philadelphia?”
“No.” Nancy Adams had a slightly startled expression, which it took Hunter a minute to recognize was built into her eyes, as if life itself caused it.
“But he did talk with you—?”
“With me,” Brian said, raising his hand. “We had a decent talk.”
“I won’t speak with the man.” Nancy turned her head to the side, gripping the chair arms.
Brian exhaled, puffing out his cheeks, slumped in the other guest chair. “We disagree on this a little,” he said. “For whatever reason, I always got on with him. Not that we had a lot in common.”
“Football,” Nancy said.
“Well, that’s right, although we disagreed a little there, too,” he said, trying to keep things light. “I’m a Chicago Bears fan. He’s Eagles. Of course, we don’t actually have a home team in Iowa. We have some folks who are diehard Packers fans. What’s the home team here? I was trying to figure that out—Ravens or Redskins?”
“Either one,” Hunter said. “Although I’m partial to the Eagles.”
“He offered to pay for the funeral,” Nancy said, crossing her legs, uncomfortable with the football talk.
“He can pay half,” Brian said.
“We were pleased to learn that you’re investigating this,” Nancy said.
Hunter shrugged. “It’s a routine investigation at this point.”
“But you’re Homicide.” Nancy glanced at the door as if for some kind of confirmation.
“Yes. Do you think it was homicide?”
“I’m sure it was,” Nancy said.
Brian’s nose twitched. Hunter had already looked them up. Brian was the middle child, Nancy the oldest.
“When was the last time you talked with your sister?” Hunter asked.
“It was intermittent,” Brian said.
“Really talked with her?” Nancy said, her voice rising to a dominant level. “Was about two weeks ago. She was quite upset. She didn’t let on what was happening, but I could kind of read between the lines.” Her eyes moistened, went somewhere else. “She told me about this thing that she was afraid of that was going to happen. That’s what she called it. This thing.”
“She didn’t say anything about it to me,” Brian said factually.
“What do you think it was?” Hunter asked.
“I don’t know, I wish I did. She wouldn’t—Susie just always had this—it was like a heightened awareness, really, almost a sixth sense, from when she was a little girl. I’m not saying it was supernatural or paranormal or anything, but it was a gift. Even when she was little.” Hunter glanced at Brian, who was pulling lint from his shirt. “She just had this, I don’t know, sensitivity, this greater awareness than most people have.”
“But you don’t know what specifically it was that was bothering her?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Susie was always kind of a dreamer,” Brian said, picking it up. “From when we were kids. She was the youngest and I guess she just felt she needed to be a little different. To stand out, maybe.”
“Our parents are devastated, naturally,” Nancy said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “They were sort of waiting for her to make her mark. We all were. Which she would have done. They didn’t expect she’d w
ant to be an artist, of course, but they always supported her. Although they were never real comfortable with Susan marrying him.”
“She was actually quite shy,” Brian said. “But she had this great imagination. And she really wanted to be an artist. She had that idea all her life. Be an artist and live in New York City, Greenwich Village. She romanticized it in her mind.”
“Bright lights, big city,” Nancy said.
“To the point that, when she finally got there, I think it was kind of a letdown.”
“She had some troubles there,” Nancy said. “She went broke. My father wired her money once and it seemed to disappear in a few days. She did fall in love, though.” Nancy’s eyes became teary and she glanced toward the Bay. “I was sure she was going to marry him.”
“John,” Brian said.
“Yes, John Linden. But then Nicholas came along. And I guess she was more drawn to the allure. Not that I have any right to stand in judgment of anyone, least of all my sister.”
Brian said, “I think she saw Nick as someone who was very worldly and maybe could fix her problems.”
“She believed that life was supposed to be that perfect summer,” Nancy said.
“How’d they meet?” Hunter asked Brian.
“She just answered an ad, and went to work,” Nancy said. “That was the kind of deal he was running: He hired secretaries. Probably still does. He had a business on the Jersey Shore and ran ads for secretaries. I think it was a racket.”
Brian’s face contorted as she said this. Every time she became emotional, he looked as if he was suffering mild chest pains.
“Will you tell us honestly what you have?” Nancy narrowed her eyes at Hunter. “As far as an investigation goes? Is there anything implicating him? Any evidence yet?”
“I can’t say,” Hunter said. “It’s an active investigation. Although I can tell you, Nicholas Champlain has an alibi. He was out of town when it happened.”
“Well, I don’t believe it,” Nancy said, crossing her arms.
Brian sighed.
“I’d like to hear more about this boyfriend. John Linden,” Hunter said.
“John? He lives in Delaware now,” Nancy said. “I just received an e-mail from him, actually.”
“So you’ve stayed in touch.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” she said.
Brian said, “I think he just heard Susan had passed and sent condolences.”
“Had he stayed in touch with Susan, do you know?”
“I think he may have,” he said.
“Do you know how I might reach him?”
“John Linden?” Nancy said. “Why would you want to do that?”
She looked at her brother, who nodded. “Go ahead.”
“He’s an attorney in Delaware now,” she said. “Near New Castle. I’m sure he’s listed.”
“Is he married, too?”
Brian coughed and looked at his sister.
“I understand he did finally marry, yes,” Nancy said. “My feeling is that Susie probably regretted it in a way that she didn’t stay with him.”
“So did she break things off?”
“Well—”
“She was always a little vague about that,” Brian said. “They both said it was ‘mutual.’ ”
“Which is another way of saying they don’t want to talk about it.”
“I think maybe she wore him down a bit,” Brian said, smiling privately. “She did that.”
“Maybe,” Nancy said, disagreeing.
“Are you staying in town overnight?” Hunter asked.
“We are,” Brian said. “We’re at the Old Shore Inn. We’re going to church in the morning and then we’re driving back.”
“Well, I’ll probably see you in church, then. I hope you say hello to Pastor Bowers. I know he thought very highly of your sister.”
Hunter found John Linden’s listing a few minutes after saying goodbye to Susan’s siblings and left him a voice-mail message. She surfed for Linden online. He was a tax attorney who collected antique clocks and owned a house in the suburbs appraised at $324,000. She found just one image of him, taken at an American Cancer Society fund-raising dinner in New Castle. He was a wide-cheeked man, well-dressed, posing with his arm around his smiling blond wife. Hunter looked at it for a while and felt pretty sure about one thing: John Linden was the man with the elegant shoulders.
LUKE’S FAVORITE MUSIC was silence. Often his best thoughts came late at night when he should have been sleeping. He’d open his eyes in the dark sometimes and think up an entire sermon while Charlotte and Sneakers slept soundly beside him—although he was lucky if he remembered half of it in the morning. Some of those sermons were inspired by his parents, who had expected big things from Luke and seemed quietly disappointed at times that he hadn’t achieved them by the time cancer began to eat away at his father. Luke still abided by some of the simple wisdom his father had given him as a boy, his rules for betterment: whenever you think you’ve finished with something, he’d say, look at it one more time and ask, how can I make this even better? How can I give it more meaning?
Luke practiced today’s sermon in his head as he lay in bed waiting for daylight. But his thoughts kept drifting to Susan Champlain—the look of expectation in her eyes seemed as vivid in his mind as it had in his office five days earlier. Luke couldn’t get back to sleep. When dawn broke over the marshlands, he was outside trotting slowly with Sneakers along the bluff, the sky turning silver-blue above the farm fields. It was a gorgeous day, reminding him of the mornings when he first felt called to the ministry, walking along the beach in Northern California. He thought of the prayer of St. Francis, with its peculiar inverse logic—in dying we are born; by giving we receive; comfort rather than be comforted; love rather than be loved. Luke had always been interested in things he couldn’t see, from when he was a boy, gazing up at the dark infinities from his backyard. It was his job now to talk about them, to try to explain them in ways that encouraged and inspired people. The death of Susan reminded him of the enormity of that task, of making Biblical ideas live beyond the twenty minutes of his Sunday sermon. How do you make them resonate through the week?
Chapter Twenty
It’s not often that we don’t have enough parking spaces,” Luke told the congregation, which was full to the rafters that morning. “I’m reminded of the old story about the man who was late for an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. He kept going around and around the block but nothing opened up. Finally he said, ‘God, if only you’ll let me find a space, I promise I’ll attend church every Sunday and read the Bible every night.’ Miraculously, it seemed, a parking space opened up right in front of him. So the man told God, ‘Never mind, I just found one.’ ”
The congregation chuckled, although there was a somber undercurrent in the room this morning, which seemed to expand when the chuckling stopped. Everyone knew that a member of the congregation was missing.
“When I think of the events of the past week,” Luke said, beginning his sermon, “I’m reminded of something the apostle James said. He was talking to a group of businessmen who were making plans, as all of us do. And James said, ‘Now listen, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a vapor that appears for a little while and vanishes.’
“It’s a theme that recurs throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New. First Chronicles tells us that our time on Earth is like a shadow. Job says, ‘My life is a breath.’ In Psalm 102, we’re told our days ‘vanish like smoke.’ Psalm 103 says, ‘Our days on Earth are like grass, the wind passes through it and it is gone.’ ”
Luke glanced up and noticed the sheriff was seated alone in the third row, making faces. Was he trying to suppress a sneeze?
&
nbsp; “I’m also reminded of what David said, in First Samuel 20: ‘There is but a step between me and death.’ ” He paused, glancing to the other side of the room, seeing Charlotte and feeling a tender emotion flow through him, thinking about their project. “There is only one step separating each of us from death. One step.
“Most of us here this morning have had to deal with the loss of someone close in our lives, whether a parent, a brother or sister, a neighbor, a best friend. Many of us have known someone who died suddenly and we’ve recognized—painfully—the truth of David’s words.
“This week, we unexpectedly lost a friend and congregation member, Susan Champlain. And we were again reminded how close each of us is—just one step—from death. A week ago, Susan sat here with us in our sanctuary, as she did every Sunday. And three days later, she went to be with the Lord.
“Susan liked to sit on the right side, close to the front, often in the fourth row,” Luke said, pointing toward the pew where she sat. “We welcome her brother and sister this morning, Nancy and Brian, who are visiting from Iowa, and we share their enormous loss.”
An explosion erupted in the sanctuary, a single guttural sound like the roar of a lion. Luke blinked several times. It was the sheriff, finally sneezing. “Je-sus! ’Scuse me!” he said.
Luke waited a moment for heads to swivel back. “One step,” he continued, pleased that much of the congregation chose to ignore the sheriff. “Susan visited with me this past Tuesday. We talked a little about faith, a little bit about her life, a little about her art. As many of you know, Susan was a talented photographer, and she had many plans for her future. As all of us do.
“If we knew how close that one step was, would we live our lives any differently? Would we look at our limited time here through a different lens? Would we place a higher value on the presence of God in our lives? On our interactions with one another?
“What is value?” Luke asked the congregation. “The pearl merchant asks that in Matthew. Often what Scripture says about value and what our society values are two very different things. And too often our society gives value to the wrong things.
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